Sputter deposition of hydrogenated amorphous carbon film and applications thereof

In a method forming a work piece for use as a photolithographic mask by depositing an amorphous hydrogenated carbon film onto a substrate comprising the steps of:

• placing a graphite target and said workpiece in a sputter deposition chamber;
• applying a voltage to said graphite target;
• directing at a graphite target a particle beam to reactively sputter deposit graphite from said target onto said substrate as an amorphous hydrogenated carbon film while:
• argon is introduced into said deposition chamber at a flow rate of from about 1 to about 100 sccm;
• hydrogen is introduced into said deposition chamber at a flow rate of about 1 to 100 sccm;
• hydrocarbon and helium are introduced as a combined gas at a flow rate of from about 5 to about 100 sccm, where said combined gas contains from about 50% to about 99% helium to provide said amorphous hydrogenated carbon film with an optical transmission of 0.5% to 10% and a refractive index of 1.6 to 2.2 at the 365 nm, 248 nm or 193 nm wavelength and a transmissivity at the 488 wavelength.

A method of forming a work piece depositing a diamond-like carbon film onto a substrate by sputter vapor deposition which comprises the steps of:

• providing a sputter deposition chamber containing said substrate and a carbon target;
• directing a beam at said carbon target to reactively deposit a amorphous carbon film from the graphite target onto the substrate while:
• introducing argon into said deposition chamber at a flow rate of from about 1 to 100 sccm;
• introducing hydrogen into said deposition chamber at a flow rate of from about 1 to about 10 sccm;
• introducing acetylene diluted with helium, as a combined gas, at a flow rate of from about 5 to about 100 sccm, wherein said combined gas contains from about 50% to about 1% acetylene and from about 50% to about 99% helium to provide said diamond-like carbon film with optical transmission characteristics at a wavelength of 365 nm, 248 nm or 193 nm to make said workpiece suitable for use as a photolithographic mask.